Method of enhancing emails with targeted ads

ABSTRACT

A computer method and system for intercepting email messages, scanning the email messages for key words, determining whether the key words match or relate to key words determined to relate to advertising content, and enhancing the email message by routing the emails to recipients in a manner so that highly relevant, highly targeted advertising tag lines or other content are displayed together with the emails when the emails are accessed and viewed by email recipients.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/174,920, filed Jul. 17, 2008, and entitled “Method of EnhancingEmails with Targeted Ads”, which is a division of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/234,564, filed Sep. 4, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No.7,599,852, and entitled “Method and Apparatus for Adding Advertising TagLines to Electronic Messages”, which claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C.§ 119 of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/370,478, filedApr. 5, 2002, and entitled “Method and Apparatus for Adding AdvertisingTag Lines to Electronic Messages”. The disclosures of the foregoingapplications are incorporated in their entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

This invention pertains to business methods and apparatuses related toelectronic messages or peer-to-peer communications (SMS messaging,Instant Messaging, email), message components of File Sharingapplications (Napster, Kaaza, Morpheus, Knutella, etc.). In particularit pertains to a computer device intercepting sent electronic messages,scanning the message body content for key words, sending the key wordsto a remote central computer server which analyses the key words andenhances the message by attaching a relevant, contextual advertising tagline or image/banner/words/HTML/Flash, etc. to the electronic message,and transmitting the enhanced message to the receiver.

Description of the Related Art

A number of global network advertising systems are known which are usedto sell advertising attached to global network messaging applications.In the early 1990's Hotmail (hotmail.com) pioneered the concept ofintercepting personal electronic communications and appendingthird-party content in-side the message of the sender and intended forthe recipient to see. Many other messaging systems also followed suitand began appending additional third-party content to personalelectronic communications subscribing users. The appended third partycontent currently is and has usually been very general in nature orsomewhat targeted based on dated advertising survey data of userpreferences that may have been obtained during sign-up for the service.For example, the following companies attempt to append and/or combinethird-party advertising content into electronic messages such asHotmail, MSN (Microsoft Network), Yahoo!, Mailround, Junglemate, andmore specifically Lycos Mail as part of the Terra Lycos Network. TerraLycos is a global Internet company and leading provider of Internetaccess & content and provider of various Internet communicationtechnologies. Terra Lycos has developed an electronic communicationsmarketing system that appends various third-party advertisements,sweepstakes, etc. in emails that are transmitted by subscribers. Inparticular Lycos Mail is used to enhance personal email messages byappending hyperlinks (URL's), text advertisements and general HTML typecontent along side a sender's original message. This process gives theadvertiser a trusted introduction and personal recommendation from thesender to the recipient and is intended to entice the recipient to viewand/or click the third-party content.

Other products that are similar and common in the industry are policyand “disclaimer” company content that can be appended and/or prependedto all outgoing corporate email. One company in particular Red EarthSoftware provides such a product, as does Direct Communications SoftwareLimited based in the United Kingdom. Their product eXclaimer allowscompanies to: “Add legal disclaimers, boilerplates and signatures toyour emails. With this feature you can attach text and images to anyincoming or outgoing email, above, below or even to the sides of theoriginal email body. eXclaimer can be used simply to add standard legaldisclaimer text to the footer of every outgoing mail, or it can be usedto make professional-looking emails that conform to a particular style,with company logos and colors. eXclaimer includes the ability to use anumber of variable fields from the Active Directory. These fields behavein much the same way as mail merge fields in a word processor. When usedwith these fields, the text that eXclaimer attaches can be highlypersonalized automatically. By integrating with the Active Directory,this feature can be customized for every individual, or for whole groupsor departments.” (www.exclaimer2000.com).

Reiner, U.S. Pat. No. 20020029250 issued Mar. 7, 2002 entitled “Methodand apparatus for transmitting an electronic message on electronicletterhead” creates and distributes computer-enhanced artwork for use inelectronic messaging. Reiner is primarily “a process for transformingartwork, for example a logo, into a computer-readable artwork which canbe computer-enhanced, optimized and distributed to a client computer.”

Tuvey et al., GB Patent No. 2369218 published Feb. 14, 2002 discloses amethod of appending compatible graphic or text-based content intoelectronic messages after intercepting the message and analyzing themessaging system format. The methods employed specifically by Tuvey etal. are not message content specific but are rather generaladvertisements (with a focus on large intrusive banner ads) that aregenerated based on user preferences in very high-level generalcategories such as “books”, “Internet” or “shopping”. The currentsign-up process of Tuvey et al. requires the subscriber to “Select aminimum of 6 interests” stating that “It helps us to make sure you onlysee the stamps you're really interested in!” This process clearly limitsthe Tuvey et al. system to a minimum of six general interest categoriesand more importantly Tuvey et al. makes no attempt to determine thefocus of the actual message content or to derive keyword essence todeliver highly targeted, highly relevant, contextual third-partyadvertisements. The result is that, the Tuvey et al. system will notplace third-party content (i.e., ads) that are message content specificand cannot deliver “on-the-fly” contextual content exactly when theadvertiser and/or recipient needs it.

Tuvey et al. specifically states in patent No. GB2369218, “Addinginformation to an electronic communication or e-mail”: “[0040] (a) Embedadvertising material into emails; or to [0041] (b) Add referenceinformation to emails—for example an organisation's mail server may becontrolled to add information to incoming mails about the sender of thereceived email where this information was available from a resource towhich the organisation has access, or alternatively information about asender's particular area of expertise or information specificallytargeted at the recipient or the organisation they work for may be addedto an organisation's outgoing emails.” (original spelling included).

Both of these patented methods and processes fail to deliver contextual,relevant, message specific, message related content exactly when theadvertiser needs it to be seen and more importantly exactly when therecipient of the message needs to see the advertisement or otherrelevant third-party content as it relates to the topic of discussion(i.e., message body content) between the sender and receiving parties.The general enhancement claims made by the applicants are artwork, logosor general graphical banner ads that are wholly unrelated to anyspecific message content. Accordingly, there remains a need to provide amore efficient means for delivering relevant, contextual third-partycontent via personal electronic messages utilizing“Just-in-Time-Delivery” to put the content in front of the user whenit's needed and when it's relevant to the immediate situation of thesender and receiver.

The current methods in use in the industry render the advertisingunfocussed which results in lesser revenues from the sales of lower costrandom advertising rates. There thus remains a need for a methodadapting advertising directed to particular users of a global marketingnetwork.

In summary, the methods described in the above patent applications andmethods do not analyze the message content to append relevantadvertising messages. Instead, they append intrusive, blatant,predetermined dated third party advertising to the message. Nor do thesemethods provide a means to alter, modify, enhance or change the actualcontent or words of the message body text (as written by the sender) inany way. These applications therefore fail to harness the true potentialof personal electronic messaging as a means for a contextuallyintelligent delivery of third-party content. The current methods fail totap into what is the essence of the communication, extract that essence,and relate to it. There thus remains a need to employ a process wherebyone can deliver third-party advertising content based on an electronicmessaging user's current interests as reflected in the message contextitself to make the appended advertisements significantly more relevantto the current topic of conversation between the individuals doing themessage exchanging. The method and apparatus described below providessuch an invention.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is:

-   -   a. a process for enhancing personal, person-to-person electronic        communication messages such as email, instant messaging, etc.        between two or more individuals via a worldwide-interconnected        network i.e., the Internet, etc., local area networks, wide-area        networks, wireless networking, etc.    -   b. a process for directly affecting, altering, modifying and/or        changing the sender's message body content.    -   c. a process for altering specific words in sender's message        content to be “clickable” by the recipient via a hyperlink or        URL usable on the Internet or other network.

Said messages will be enhanced, more intelligent, more intuitive, moreinformed after reaching the intended recipients. The present inventioncan deliver highly targeted, “on-the-fly” contextual third-party contentto instant messaging messages, email, SMS and nearly any other type ofmessaging system typically involving two or more individuals.

It comprises a method and system for attaching and transmittingadvertising tag lines to electronic email transmissions. Specifically,it comprises a service provider agreeing, using a computer network witha central server, to provide financial incentives to clientstransmitting emails who consent to attach advertising tag lines to theiremail transmissions. The service provider is compensated for theseservices by charging and collecting from advertisers fees for attachingadvertising tag lines to electronic emails. The service providerreceives, using a computer network, client consents to attachadvertising tag lines to their email transmissions through a globalinformation network. After the consents are acquired, the serviceprovider intercepts and scans consenting clients email transmissions(body content and subject) for key words and contextual essence by thecomputer networks' central server. Based on the key word and contextualanalysis, the service provider attaches tag line advertisements byactivating the central server to directly add tag lines relating to thekey words of the intercepted email. The central server then transmitsthe tagged emails to the clients' intended recipient. The serviceprovider then periodically compensates the participating client for eachemail transmission sent with a tag line attached.

In another variation of method and system for attaching and transmittingadvertising tag lines to electronic email transmissions, the serviceprovider may provide periodic financial compensation to recipients ofemails with advertising tag lines. The method and system for attachingand transmitting advertising tag lines to electronic email transmissionsmay thus compensate either or both of the client and recipient with aportion of the funds paid by advertisers to priority list their servicesin advertising tag lines attached to emails. It is contemplated thatadvertisers will be listed in ascending priority tag line listings basedon the amount paid by advertisers based on a bid system, which increasesdepending on hierarchy tag line listing in the electronic email.

In another preferred embodiment of the method and system for attachingand transmitting advertising tag lines to electronic emailtransmissions, the client is compensated for each email with a tag linesent by its recipient to a third party user. It is also possible forparticipating user's to receive multi-level compensation for eachdownline recipient of a transmitted email incorporating a tag line sentby each level of its recipients' third party senders.

Preferably, the method and system for attaching and transmittingadvertising tag lines to electronic email transmissions utilizes acentral server which does not retain the contents of the email after thetag line is attached to maintain message confidentiality. In actualoperation the processes of the technology are thus completelytransparent to the end users.

In one preferred embodiment of the invention, the interaction of thesender's personal message body content with third-party content (i.e.,ads) display and ranking from the advertiser perspective works asfollows:

-   -   1. Advertiser chooses to purchase ad inventory from the tag line        service provider.    -   2. Advertiser logs on to the tag line service provider web site        and chooses one or more keywords that are associated with their        particular advertisement or content.    -   3. Advertiser selects a particular key word based on historical        keyword data provided by tag line service provider. For example,        the advertiser is shown the number of times in the past week        various particular keywords may have been used in other message        body content and then chooses a keyword such as “Travel”.    -   4. Advertiser then makes a pay-per-click bid for use of the        keyword such “Travel”. This is the amount that the advertiser is        willing to pay when a recipient clicks on their particular ad in        the email ad listings.    -   5. Advertiser is then guaranteed that anytime an email is sent        through the OpenMX Server with the word “Travel” in the message        body or subject line of a participating user, their ad will be        appended directly into the email body and become apart of the        email message.    -   6. Advertiser is further assured that if the keyword “Travel” is        found in the sender's personal message body text, the keyword        will be dynamically altered into a clickable hyperlink that        points directly to the advertiser's ad content on the Internet.    -   7. Advertiser contracts that to get the in-message text Hotlink,        the advertiser has to have the top ranked or top bid ad out of        all returned ad listings.

Preferably, the tag line advertisements are appended in a non-obtrusivemanner to the body of the text of the electronic message, such as at thebottom or on the side of the message.

The advantages to the participants are numerous. For example, from theparticipating sender's perspective, the sender receives compensation forevery tag line appended to the message body text. From the receiver'sperspective, the receiver receives advertising tag lines of currentinterest to the subject to the message body text. In addition, thereceiver may receive a portion of the compensation for the appended tagline. From the advertiser's perspective, the advertiser receives morefocused advertisements directed to current topics of discussion betweenthe sender and the receiver. The advertisement is carried by a trustedtransmitter and therefore is not screened by scanning software. Theadvertiser also receives tiered advertising listings directly related tothe size of its advertising budget. From the tag line service provider'sperspective, the tag line service provider receives compensation forevery appended tag line.

In another preferred embodiment, the tag line service provider,Sponster™ of Salt Lake City, Utah, has a Web driven server associatedwith an analysis software package known as “Contextus” to provide aprocessing engine as it relates to email is comprised of a PC with anIntel processor running Microsoft Windows NT Server software and IIS orInternet Information Server Web server software. IIS is configured withan Object based programming language called ASP/VBScript used to createthe Sponster™ Web application. The Web application also uses HTML,JavaScript and other relevant Internet based languages. Subscribingusers change their outgoing SMTP email setting to point to an OpenMXmail server (mail.openmx.com, etc.) and then all outbound email fromthat user will arrive at the OpenMX server where the processing occurs.

Once an email arrives at the server it is picked up by the Contextusprocessing engine that parses the email subject, body and all MIMEparts. All necessary message and attachment decoding is done (Base64,Quoted Printable, Uuencoded, BINHEX, etc.). All header data; Date,Subject, From, Priority, Recipients, etc. are parsed through. All partsincluding text, HTML, XML and other body parts, every attachment, andall other MIME parts of the message are parsed.

The Contextus processing engine gives particular attention to theSubject and Body text of the message. Every word of the Subject and Bodyare parsed and analyzed and compared against key word and key phrasedata from the Sponster Media advertiser/third-party content database.

The Sponster Web application makes a request to or communicates with theStructured Query Language (SQL) Ad Database via Active Data Objects(ADO) or via an HTTP request that calls an ASP script that uses ADO tocommunicate with the SQL database.

Once the ads are pulled from the SQL database they sent back to theOpenMX Server for the Contextus processing engine to continue theprocess of appending the ad listings to the email message text file.Once appended, the contextually enhanced message is then sent to itsintended destination across the global information network. This is doneusing DNS and the SMTP protocol. Thus email sent to joe@somewhere.orgwill trigger a domain name search (DNS) lookup on somewhere.org. Thelookup will be first for a mail exchanger (MX) record, then a normaladdress (A) lookup if this fails. MX records contain a preference value(to chose among multiple MX records for a particular domain), and theDNS name of the host receiving mail for the domain.

The modified email then arrives at its intended destination. Underoptimal conditions the entire process should only take a few seconds.

The invention thus employs conventional global communication networkcomponents associated with Sponster™ software for using the same adaptedto hook up via a modem, network card, Bluetooth interface or any otherinterface to any known data transmission networks such as terrestrialand wireless phone networks, optical data transmission networks, localarea networks (LAN), wide area networks (WAN) and all other known andunknown transmission networks and mediums to access a central computer,which provides analysis and selection of an appropriate email tags forthe intended recipient. It will communicate directly and autarkic(without means of a PC, Laptop, or personal organizer) directly with alocal or remote server or computer, which handles and keeps track of allindividual QueryStrings. This allows confidential access only byauthorized screening devices to a large continually updated database.

The device is also capable of receiving the necessary advertising datadirectly from the database stored in the remote or local server. Afterthe advertising database has been entered successfully, the Sponster™activated transmission network (terrestrial or wireless phone network)automatically downloads and tags the email with an appropriate currentadvertisement or website. This data update connection could also be doneby a dialup connection via a built-in or attached modem (analog, ISDN,etc.), via a connection to a local area network (LAN) or wide areanetwork (WAN) or other techniques. The modem connection may include theuse of mobile phones and the direct access to the Internet or intranetvia interactive computer screens.

The method and apparatus thus provides a more focused advertising systemwhere all parties are provided with compensation and current advertisinginformation to provide services or products directly related to currenttopics of interest.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1a is an example of a plain-text un-enhanced electronic message.

FIG. 1b is an example of an enhanced text electronic message of FIG. 1a.

FIG. 1c is an example of a different enhanced text electronic message ofFIG. 1 a.

FIG. 2 is an example of a general network process flow of a typicalnetwork topology.

FIG. 3 is an example of an extended distribution channel network.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

FIG. 1a is an example of a plain-text un-enhanced electronic messagesent by an anonymous sender (who is also a tag line service providermember). The main elements of the plain-text of this personal emailinclude:

-   -   1. Message body content.    -   2. Keywords that will trigger an OpenMX Server to append        specific contextual third-party content, and    -   3. Empty, un-used white space to which tag line advertisements        may be appended.

The sender sends the email to a friend that includes words in themessage body text that will trigger specific third-party advertisercontent when processed by the OpenMX Server. The sender's electronicmessage passes through the OpenMX Server equipped with processingsoftware, such as that produced by Sponster™ of Salt Lake City, Utah.When processing starts the OpenMX Server retrieves all keywords for allthird-party content (ads) stored in the ad database. The OpenMX Serveranonymously parses sender's message body content and compares it againstall ad keywords previously retrieved from the ad database. In this caseOpenMX matched the words “Travel” and “Baby” from the message bodycontent and appends the advertiser purchased keywords “Travel” and“Baby” from the ad database as shown in FIG. 1b . FIG. 1b illustrates atypical enhanced tag line personal message email. When keywords triggerpaid third-party content (i.e., ads) the ads are ranked from top tobottom based on the payout amount to sender with the highest payout adbeing ranked first or at the top of the ad listing. The main elements ofthe FIG. 1b enhanced personal email message are:

-   -   1. Message body content is directly affected.    -   2. Two different keywords triggered third-party content but only        one keyword became an in-message Hotlink. That Hotlink directly        corresponds to the highest bid ad in the ad listing. This is a        competition amongst all ad listings returned or derived via        specific keywords found in the personal message body text.    -   3. Dynamically appended listing of all sponsors that relate to        keyword, un-used empty white space is now utilized.    -   4. Payout amount to sender and related affiliates if recipient        clicks ad listing. Each ad listing has a separate payout amount        listed and will trigger the payment amount specified when        clicked. Also, the payout rules and amounts will apply if the        recipient clicks the Hotlink within the message body.    -   5. Sponster Media specific links. Clicking “join” will        automatically link the recipient to the sender in the Sponster        Media affiliate program.

Specifically, OpenMX retrieved all ads related to Travel and Baby andthen displayed all ads in the ad listing as part of the email body asshown in FIG. 1c . The sender's personal message body content is thenfurther directly modified when the OpenMX Server dynamically changes theword “Travel” from the sender's personal message text into a clickablehyper linked URL. The word now has a subtle change in appearance, it isunderlined, may change in color, and the mouse cursor changes when ithovers over the word. When and if the newly hyper linked word is clickedit will take the recipient to the site of the advertiser with the toplisting in the ad results. It should be noted that even though matchingtwo keywords from the body content, the OpenMX Server did not alter orhyperlink the word “Baby”. This is because the advertiser purchase pricefor the keyword “Travel” has a higher click-through-payout than theadvertisement purchase price for the keyword “Baby”.

Comparing FIG. 1c to FIG. 1b , there is a different keyword in themessage body content. Both keywords “baby” and “travel” triggered paidcontextual content to be appended but only the highest bid ad got theHotlink in the sender's personal message body text. Ad results werepulled for “travel” and “baby” and in this particular email PricelineTravel has the highest payout to sender (in the event of aclick-through). Therefore Priceline gets the top spot in the ad listingsand Priceline gets the “travel” Hotlink in the sender's message body. InFIG. 1b there were no “Travel” related advertisers with ad content inthe system, therefore none were pulled by the OpenMX server. In thatcase the highest bid ad for the keyword “baby” got the Hotlink and thetop spot in the ad listing.

This hierarchy listing process is a key aspect of the Sponster™ Mediasystem and invention and was included to motivate third-party contentproviders to bid up for the highest spot in the advertising taglistings. No other listings get an in-message Hotlink except for thehighest bidder in the advertising tag listing. Having a contextualHotlink directly in the message body text is far superior to having justan ad appended in the returned ad listings where the desire is togenerate direct click-throughs to the advertiser content.

FIG. 2 illustrates a brief overview of a typical general network processflow for the OpenMX Technology employing the invention. It discloses ageneral network topology in common use on the Internet and corporateIntranets. In the illustration, email is sent from an affiliatecomputer. The affiliate's email client is configured so that alloutgoing SMTP email is sent directly to the OpenMX Mail Server. TheOpenMX Server then receives the email searches for key words, and afterprocessing, parsing, etc., an intelligent ad request is made to the tagline service provider web server. The web server communicates with thedatabase and relevant/Contextual ads are pulled and appended by theOpenMX processor. A direct MX lookup is then performed on the recipientdomain to provide and transmit to the recipient an enhanced email.

FIG. 3 illustrates the method of the invention employed in an extendeddistribution channel network The Sponster™ Media affiliate program isshown as a multi-tier program that allows all members to earncommissions on down line tagged messages, not just on their own personalemails. These commissions can be earned on tagged messages on aplurality of down line transmissions sent by other affiliates withintheir affiliate network. As affiliate users get more and more affiliatesto join the system they get credit for the emails that pass throughthose distribution channels. This becomes an Extended DistributionChannel and can grow without limit as there are no restrictions on sizeor volume of tagged emails. For example, Affiliate A signs up with theSponster™ Media system, and during the course of using the system getsusers B, C and D to join also. User B sends about 8 emails per daythrough the OpenMX Servers. Any commissions paid to B via click-throughevents also trigger payments to User A. Likewise any commissions earnedby User C will trigger payments to User A. Similarly, commissions earnedby User D will trigger payments to User A.

The method and apparatus thus provides a cycle of benefits for allparticipants. Third party Dynamic Content Advertising Providers providecontextual and non-contextual commissionable and non-commissionablecontent for sender, enhancing message content. Message content can bedirectly acted upon via key word hyper linking or simply appended to viatemplate wrapping. Content Advertising Providers compete for adplacement based on a key word bidding process in the case of multipleand similar contextual content placements. Sender's route outgoingmessages through an OpenMX Server and by default their everydaycommunications provides a distribution channel that results in a trustedintroduction and tacit approval for the Content Advertising Provider,presently blocked by various messaging software. The sender'sdistribution channel is usually comprised of but not limited to friends,family, acquaintances, co-workers, etc.

The post OpenMX Sender transmission output includes enhanced relevantcontent to receiver messages, which are non-intrusive to the content.The enhanced content was determined by analyzing the message content inan anonymous, non-personally identifying way for specific key words thathave been deemed valuable by third party Content Advertising Providers.The key word content of the message is then contextually matched to theadvertising tag lines. If there is no contextual related content fromany Content Advertising Provider then a random content pull is done.

The receiver who may be unrelated to the tag line service provider butin most cases not unrelated to the sender, finds enhanced contentrelevant to the current email session, or discussion or for other variedreasons decides to view the added third-party content. The view event or“click-through” event results in a commission payment event where aportion of that commission is credited to the sender. The percentagepayout amount is determined by the tag line service provider's variabledepth compensation pro gram that is part of the tag line serviceprovider's multi-tier affiliate program.

The Advertiser benefits from increased exposure, greater brandawareness, increased sales and other general and related benefits thatresult from a trusted recommendation or referral, which bypassesmessage-blocking (spam blocking) software. The receiver benefits withthe unexpected addition of relevant, contextual tag line advertisements,to the message topic of email discussion.

The sender receives a portion of the advertising compensation for eachdown line tagged message recipient. The end result is that we have asystem that can intelligently and contextually determine in-session,commissionable third-party content placement and ranking without ANYinvasion of privacy in any way and it's non-intrusive.

Although this specification has referred to the illustrated embodiments,it is not intended to restrict the scope of the appended claims. Theclaims themselves contain those features deemed essential to theinvention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: associating a keyword withan advertisement for insertion into electronic transmissions; receiving,at a messaging server from a client computing device, an electronictransmission including information identifying a sender of theelectronic transmission and message body content; extracting, at themessaging server, the message body content from the electronictransmission; transmitting, from the messaging server to anadvertisement selection server, an advertisement request, wherein theadvertisement request includes at least a portion the message bodycontent; selecting, at the advertisement selection server, informationidentifying the advertisement for insertion into the electronictransmission, said selecting based on a detection of the keyword withina portion of the message body content included in the advertisementrequest; transmitting, from the advertisement selection server to themessaging server, the information identifying the advertisement; uponreceipt of the information identifying the advertisement, automaticallygenerating and transmitting, from the messaging server, an enhancedelectronic transmission to a recipient, wherein generating the enhancedelectronic transmission comprises at least one of: altering the messagebody content from the electronic transmission to insert at least aportion of the information identifying the advertisement into an un-usedportion of the message body content; and changing the keyword within themessage body content of the enhanced electronic transmission into ahyperlink pointing to content on a network, wherein the hyperlink isgenerated at least in part on the information identifying theadvertisement; and upon receiving information indicating an interactionwith the advertisement or the hyperlink by the recipient of the enhancedelectronic transmission, initiating a payment to a user of the clientcomputing device.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprisingassociating the keyword with a second advertisement, wherein theenhanced electronic transmission further comprises the secondadvertisement inserted in a second un-used portion of the message bodycontent.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising: associating afirst payment amount with the advertisement; and associating a secondpayment amount with the second advertisement, wherein the second paymentamount is less than the first payment amount, and wherein the un-usedportion of the message body content for the advertisement presents theadvertisement before the second un-used portion of the message bodycontent for the second advertisement.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: upon receiving information indicating the interaction withthe advertisement by the recipient of the enhanced electronictransmission, initiating a second payment to the recipient.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: upon receiving informationindicating a second interaction with the advertisement by a secondrecipient of the enhanced electronic transmission, initiating a secondpayment to the user, wherein the second recipient is not identified inthe electronic transmission transmitted from the client computing deviceor ready for transmission from the client computing device.
 6. Themethod of claim 5 further comprising: upon receiving the informationindicating the second interaction with the advertisement by the secondrecipient of the enhanced electronic transmission, initiating a thirdpayment to at least one of the recipient or the second recipient.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: anonymously parsing the messagebody content to detect the keyword.
 8. The method of claim 1, whereinthe portion of the message body content included in the advertisingrequest does not include personally identifiable information of thesender or the recipient.
 9. A system comprising: a database storing anassociation between a keyword and an advertisement for insertion intoelectronic transmissions; an advertisement server in data communicationwith the database and configured to: receive, from an electronicmessaging server, a request for an advertisement to be inserted into anelectronic transmission; select information identifying theadvertisement for insertion into the electronic transmission, saidselecting based on a detection of a keyword within at least a portion ofthe request; and transmit, to the electronic messaging server, theinformation identifying the advertisement; the electronic messagingserver configured to: receive the electronic transmission from a clientcomputing device, the electronic transmission including informationidentifying a sender of the electronic transmission and message bodycontent; extract, at the messaging server, the message body content fromthe electronic transmission; transmit the request including at least aportion of the message body content to the advertisement server;receive, from the advertisement server, the information identifyingadvertisement for insertion into the electronic transmission; uponreceipt of the information identifying the advertisement, automaticallygenerate and transmit an enhanced electronic transmission to arecipient, wherein generating the enhanced electronic transmissioncomprises: altering the message body content from the electronictransmission to insert at least a portion of the information identifyingthe advertisement into an un-used portion of the message body content;and changing the keyword within the message body content of the enhancedelectronic transmission into a hyperlink pointing to content on anetwork, wherein the hyperlink is generated at least in part on theinformation identifying the advertisement; and a networked server,configured to, upon receiving information indicating an interaction withthe advertisement or the hyperlink by the recipient of the enhancedelectronic transmission, initiate a payment to a user of the clientcomputing device.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the database storesa second association between the keyword and a second advertisement,wherein the electronic messaging server is further configured to receivethe second advertisement for insertion into a second un-used portion ofthe message body content.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein thedatabase further stores a first payment amount for the advertisement,and a second payment amount for the second advertisement, wherein thesecond payment amount is less than the first payment amount, and whereinthe electronic messaging server receives the advertisement and thesecond advertisement ranked by payment amount and wherein the un-usedportion of the message body content for the advertisement presents theadvertisement before the second un-used portion of the message bodycontent for the second advertisement.
 12. The system of claim 9, whereinthe networked server is further configured to, upon receivinginformation indicating the interaction with the advertisement by therecipient of the enhanced electronic transmission, initiating a secondpayment to the recipient.
 13. The system of claim 9, wherein thenetworked server is further configured to, upon receiving informationindicating a second interaction with the advertisement by a secondrecipient of the enhanced electronic transmission, initiating a secondpayment to the user, wherein the second recipient is not identified inthe electronic transmission transmitted from the client computing deviceor ready for transmission from the client computing device.
 14. Thesystem of claim 13, wherein the networked server is further configuredto, upon receiving the information indicating the second interactionwith the advertisement by the second recipient of the enhancedelectronic transmission, initiating a third payment to at least one ofthe recipient or the second recipient.
 15. The system of claim 9,wherein the advertising server is configured to anonymously parse themessage body content to detect the keyword.
 16. A system comprising: adata store storing specific computer-executable instructions; and acomputing device in communication with the data store, the computingdevice including a processor that executes the specificcomputer-executable instructions to cause the system to at least:associate a keyword with an advertisement for insertion into electronictransmissions; receive, at a messaging server from a client computingdevice, an electronic transmission including information identifying asender of the electronic transmission and message body content; extract,at the messaging server, the message body content from the electronictransmission; transmit, from the messaging server to an advertisementselection server, an advertisement request, wherein the advertisementrequest includes at least a portion the message body content; select, atthe advertisement selection server, information identifying theadvertisement for insertion into the electronic transmission, saidselecting based on a detection of the keyword within a portion of themessage body content included in the advertising request; transmit, fromthe advertisement selection server to the messaging server, theinformation identifying the advertisement; upon receipt of theinformation identifying the advertisement, automatically generate andtransmit, from the messaging server, an enhanced electronictransmission, wherein generating the enhanced electronic transmissioncomprises at least one of: altering the message body content from theelectronic transmission to insert at least a portion of the informationidentifying the advertisement into an un-used portion of the messagebody content; and changing the keyword within the message body contentof the enhanced electronic transmission into a hyperlink pointing tocontent on a network, wherein the hyperlink is generated at least inpart on the information identifying the advertisement; and uponreceiving information indicating an interaction with the advertisementor the hyperlink by a recipient of the enhanced electronic transmission,initiate a payment to a user of the client computing device.